First of its kind partnership to promote teaching excellence amongst Indian B Schools

In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, the Indian School of Business (ISB) and the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) have joined hands to organise the ISB-IIMB Doctoral Consortium on teaching for doctoral candidates who are about to start their careers as faculty at Indian B Schools.

Led by Professors Arun Pereira, Executive Director of the Centre for Learning and Management (CLMP) at the ISB, and Sourav Mukherji, Dean of Academic Programmes at IIMB, the Consortium had participation from doctoral candidates at ISB, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Lucknow, IIM Indore, and IIM Kozhikode among others.

Participants were trained on effective teaching and classroom management, by using student-centered learning approaches to teaching, conducting effective case discussions, understanding the changing role of technology inside and outside the classroom, knowing the importance of student learning styles, how to engage with them better and what it takes to design a compelling learning experience for students. Sharing his perspective on how the association between the two B-schools can make a difference, Professor Arun Pereira of ISB said, "The ISB- IIMB Consortium is a fine example of how collaboration among Indian B-Schools can raise the bar for management education in India. If Indian B-schools are to grow in quality and global stature, it is critical that the quality of faculty and teaching standards are on par with the best in the world, and programmes like this help to make that a reality. The ISB-IIMB association is unique in that it meets an increasingly urgent need to build capacity for India's burgeoning management education sector."

Professor Sourav Mukherji, Dean of Academic Programmes at IIMB, and one of the lead faculties for the programme, said: "The ISB-IIMB Doctoral Consortium addresses a long felt demand of the doctoral student community to provide key inputs towards honing teaching skills from the master teachers of ISB and IIM Bangalore. While several doctoral consortia have in the past focused on enhancing much needed research skills, the uniqueness of this programme lies in its focus on teaching, which given the enormous shortage of high quality business school faculty, caters to an important national agenda."

Now in its fourth year, the Consortium was for the first time organised jointly by the two B Schools, at the ISB's Hyderabad campus. The programme is targeted at final year FPM /PhD/Doctoral candidates to help them get a head start as they begin their careers. A unique component of the programme is that each participant was required to teach and was provided substantive feedback, along with a recording of their teaching for review and reflection. Participants from the consortium shared their experiences of how the Consortium was helpful.

Kaveri Krishnan, from IIMB, felt it was a 'very valuable experience, especially for doctoral students with no prior teaching experience', while Biswajita Parida, IIMA, said, the consortium was 'an eye-opener to the state of the art technological tools, teaching methods, and styles of assessment evolving in the contemporary market The Doctoral Consortium was supported and funded by the International Schools of Business Management (ISBM).